Painting a guitar body

Foster

I'm rather tempted to paint my plywood monstrosity, I may not even do it but I think it'd look great as a bright red or white. Rather than do a brilliant job i'm thinking along the lines of grabbing some car spray paint from halfords and seeing what damage could be done.



Are there any alternatives to this such as a plastic wrap? I know at least one person who has their guitars with a plastic cover on top (see them play their guitar on stage or in music videos and you probably wouldn't notice, boy is it noticable close up!) 

Corvus

If you're not after perfection just give it a degrease and light sand with say 800 grit and spray over it. Using cellulose avoids the need/time/cost of adding clear coat, vs car cans.

BeardyAndy

You can get a reasonable job from a rattle can, build up the layers and it'll look pretty good. Go for a trendy matt finish to hide any imperfections in the base coat. I used matt black once because I had some in the shed and was well impressed with the outcome.

boogieman

 Most of the work in getting a decent result is in the prep. Sand it really thoroughly, wipe it down it with degreaser/solvent, then sand it again. Rinse/repeat with finer and finer grades of paper till you get it feeling really smooth all over. Any tiny imperfections you can feel with your fingertips will show up, so get it right before you even think about starting to spray it.

 Rattle cans work ok, just paint it on a warm dry day (or in a heated shed or garage) and somewhere where's there's no chance of dust getting on the wet paint. If it's too cold or damp then the paint finish can go milky. Practice on a bit of card to get an idea of the right distance to have the can from the work and how heavy to put the paint on without it dribbling. Do lots of thin coats of paint rather than a few heavy coats.

Personally I'd leave it as it is...it already looks great in a kitsch/naff way